Shady Lane Café owners William and Susi Smith have been in business two years. Two excellent dishes are the meatloaf (left above) and the tomato basil soup. Photo by Robin Garr
This friendly East End spot has long been a favorite for breakfast and lunch; when my mother and sister arrived ravenous from Florida on a late-afternoon flight, I was delighted to learn that Shady Lane stays open for dinner Tuesdays through Fridays until 8 p.m.
The four of us presented ourselves for duty and had a hard time choosing from all the goodies on the blackboard menu. And fine goodies they are, priced for recessionary times. Sandwiches and specials range from $3.95 (for my mother’s choice, a classic grilled cheese sandwich, molten cheddar spilling over toast grilled to a mouth-watering golden brown) to $6.95 (for my sister’s pick, the cranberry, Granny Smith apple and walnut salad with blue Gorgonzola cheese and Dijon mustard dressing). Continue reading Shady Lane Café: Make yourself at home→
The grilled lamb with a spicy sauce is one of the many tapas available at De la Torre’s. Photo by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
The next time you settle down to a selection of tapas and find yourself feeling grateful for small-plates dining, you might want to pause for a moment of silence in memory of King Alfonso the Wise of Castile.
Legend says that Alfonso, the 13th century monarch known for his smarts and taste for good eats and drink, invented the tapa as a get-well snack to be taken with good Spanish red wine when he was under a nasty illness. When he recovered, it is said, King Alf was so delighted with this healthy diet that he ordered taverns throughout the kingdom to serve it.
Another story traces the tapa to Andalusia, where Sherry bars developed the custom of serving glasses of the strong, sweet local wine with a slice of bread to serve as a cover or lid (“tapa” in Spanish) to keep the fruit flies out of one’s beverage. Soon a cagey entrepreneur dropped a few olives atop the bread; his competitor countered with a slice of Serrano ham, and before long, tapas had evolved. Continue reading Small bites add up to fine dinner at De la Torre’s→
Lunch Lady Land: Exteriors of two Antique Malls each containing a new lunch spot – the new mall at Jackson and Broadway that has the resurrected Colonnade Café inside (below), and Olivia’s in the Goss Avenue Antique Mall. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Ladies who lunch and go antique shopping (and men who do the same) have an unprecedented wealth of options these days, as a series of moves and changes has expanded the antique mall circuit from one popular eatery to three.
Let’s summarize: When the Louisville Antique Mall on Goss Avenue announced plans last year to move from its hulking 19th century brick industrial building to a different hulking 19th century brick industrial building on East Broadway, its critically acclaimed lunch spot, The Café, went off on its own to open a free-standing restaurant just east of downtown.
Then, not long after the Louisville Antique Mall made its move to East Broadway, a new luncheon establishment on its fifth floor revived the name of the old Colonnade cafeteria downtown. The move didn’t leave the old building on Goss vacant for long: Soon the Goss Avenue Antique Mall opened in slightly different but overlapping quarters. And sure enough, it has a lunch spot, too, dubbed Olivia’s Restaurant. Continue reading Lunch and antiques, not necessarily in that order→
A closer peek at just one portion of DakShin’s expansive daily lunch buffet. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Step into DakShin’s spacious, almost cavernous quarters, blink until your eyes adjust to the dim, and you might think you’ve found your way into an oddly named barbecue joint. Square, rough-hewn log walls frame heavy booths of oak; atop a wall at the back, looming above a large-screen television, rests the biggest canoe you have ever seen.
But take another look, and then a sniff. Elusive, aromatic scents of curry direct your palate away from barbecue. Check the television and you’ll find Bollywood-style MTV, piped in straight from India. The art on the walls is Indian, and so are the massive, colorful, Tiffany-look light fixtures that dangle from the high ceiling. Continue reading DakShin Indian: A taste of a different South→
Mojito Tapas Restaurant in the Holiday Manor center features small-plate Spanish tapas with a Cuban vibe. Chef-owner Fernando Martinez recently traveled to Europe and brought much of what he learned back home to kick Mojito’s menu up a notch. Photos by Robin Garr
When Mojito Tapas Restaurant opened in the Holiday Manor center early in 2007, it almost instantly turned golden. A stylish, upscale-but-affordable eatery run by the good folks who brought us Havana Rumba, featuring small-plate Spanish tapas with a Cuban vibe: What’s not to like?
And now it has gone platinum.
Chef-owner Fernando Martinez spent a couple of months in Europe last winter, taking a six-week intensive culinary program at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and traveling to Barcelona and environs in Spain to visit tapas bars. He’s talking about going back for more, but in the meantime, he brought much of what he learned back home and used it to kick Mojito’s menu up a notch … or several. Continue reading Sophisticated Mojito goes platinum→
It’s no secret that Louisville has an excellent fine-dining scene, especially for a city its size. Still, sometimes you just want to kick back with a good sandwich and a beer.
Enter Big Al’s Beeritaville in Clifton. With a cozy bar, front patio with tables and an outdoor beer garden complete with a horseshoe pit and cornhole, it’s a fun, laid-back place to spend a Saturday afternoon or a weeknight happy hour. LEO Weekly’s own Bar Belle, Sara Havens, wrote earlier this year that the bar at the newly made-over Mac’s is “like hanging out in a friend’s basement,” which pretty much says it all. Continue reading We kick back at Big Al’s Beeritaville→
With the arrival of Chef David Clancy, Carly Rae’s is emerging as a strong contender to break the spell of the doomed location at the corner of First and Oak streets in Old Louisville. Pictured: The charming patio. LEO photo by Sara Havens
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
Just about all local foodies can tell you about Louisville’s allegedly haunted or cursed restaurant venues, the unlucky spots that can’t hold a successful restaurant, housing one failed effort after another.
In at least one notorious situation, the old Parisian Pantry at Bardstown Road and Bonnycastle Avenue was widely believed to be cursed by an angry ghost who remained inconsolable over the removal of an upstairs wall. A dozen short-lived eateries must have come and gone before Café 360 seemed to break the juju – perhaps they replaced the wall? Continue reading Haunted House? Clancy lowers the boom→
Following up on last week’s report on Cake Flour, the yummy new organic bakery on East Market: LouisvilleHotBytes forumite Andrea Essenpreiss is building quite a reputation for herself in La Grange and Oldham County – and quickly spilling over into Louisville – with her recently established business, Q&A Sweet Treats. Continue reading Q&A Sweet Treats: Outrageously good→
The Desayuno Hondureño at Buenos Dias Café features two eggs as you like them, a mound of spicy beef strips, Honduran refried red beans, fresh avocado, fried plantains and strips of mild queso bianco Mexican cheese. Breakfast of campeones! Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
If your idea of Mexican food is shaped by Taco Bell or Don Pablo’s, it’s time you tie your taste buds into something auténtico. Real Mexican food sports colorful flavors that aren’t just spicy but tickle your tongue like a mariachi band rattles your ears.
In recent years, we’ve told you about quite a few new taquerias and roticerias brought to town by Louisville’s growing Latino community; just about every new arrival has added gustatory excitement to the regional mix. We thought we had pretty much hit the top of the ladder when a lovable, Mexico City-style taco and gordita trailer, Las Gorditas, rolled up recently in Fern Creek’s Eastland Shopping Center (LEO Weekly, May 28).
But there’s more. Out on another edge of the metro area, in a strip center just off I-65 where Hamburg Pike meets the mysteriously monikered Charlestown–N.A. Pike, the tiny but lovable Buenos Dias Café – open since March but attended with zero publicity – raises the bar another notch. Continue reading Ask a Mexican, ask a Norteamericano: Buenos Dias Café es muy sabroso→
Chef Yong Bong Tak has made Asahi a worthy addition to St. Matthews. The extensive menu includes more than 100 sushi options, including the “Hawaiian Roll” (across the top) and two pairs of nigiri sushi (bottom) – yellowtail (hamachi) on the left and mackerel (saba) on the right. Photos by Robin Garr
LEO’s Eats with LouisvilleHotBytes.com
If the rate that new Japanese restaurants and sushi bars are coming to town these days continues unabated, I’ve calculated that by May 18, 2021, there should be an individual sushi bar for every citizen of the Derby City.
I’ve reviewed enough new local sushi spots in recent months that I’m starting to wonder if we should dub this column “LEO Weekly’s sushi report.” We’ve heralded the arrival of the high-tone hiko-A-mon in Westport Village; the family-style Hanabi out in Prospect; and the tiny but excellent Oishii Sushi in the Highlands.
